Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Brain Resource Allocation

 In reading reports regarding survivors of things like car crashes and airplane crashes, several times I've read of people not having any memory of the event while they were in the thick of it (as in no memory after the fact of the time in the thick of it).  It's been a long time since I read one of those stories, but I remember them as generally saying that the event was so traumatic that the brain has blocked the trauma of the incident and that's why the individual can't remember it.  The picture painted is one of there being a memory, but the event being so bad that the brain decides to block it off... or something like that.  But I had an experience not so long ago that has led me to believe that that's not the reason people often have no memory of traumatic things they've lived through....

I was hurrying along a platform at Tokyo Station one night when someone tripped me (accidentally... I hope) and as I had been walking quickly (very quickly actually) at an angle towards a train that was departing (before the platform walls were installed at that station) and was just going to put my left foot down to change course to the right to change my forward trajectory from one going towards the train to one parallel with the train, when suddenly my left leg wasn't there and I found myself flying headfirst towards the moving train.  Had there been no train there, I would have flown off the platform and landed on the tracks, and had a train just been arriving and I had fallen in front of it, it would have been certain death.  As it was, the eleven car Yamanote Line train was departing the station, picking up speed.

   So, here's what I remember in great detail:  I'm speed-walking towards the train, I'm just about to change directly when someone's foot (apparently and hopefully accidentally) hooks into my left foot/leg and I go flying forward, head-first towards the moving train.  Two distinct thoughts were "Where's my left leg!" and then a nonverbal view of my face flying towards the moving train.  At that point there is a brief flash of the possibility of dying, but then (all of this non-verbal) a resolute call to action to do what I can and I reach out towards the train (not knowing what's going to happen, but doing nothing would result in my face directly hitting the moving train), and then.... nothing.  Just a complete blank memory-wise, until my left leg/foot slams down vertically onto the platform (making a fairly large noise hitting the temporary metal plate there as part of the preliminary construction of the platform walls) and I find myself walking/marching in parallel with the train.  A man half turned is looking at me with an expression on his face seeming to say "WTF did I just see?" and he's nudging the woman he's with to turn around and look.

   At that point, there was nothing to see - just me speed-walking past them and thinking "HS - I just about died there..." and as I headed to my next train, trying to recall just WTF happened.  So - here's my conclusion, based on that experience and some other observations about how the brain seems to work.

   It seems to me that at the point where I realized there might be nothing I could do to save myself, but I had to try... brain resource allocation devoted all resources to survival actions ("All hands on deck!" if you will).  Since all resources were focused on survival actions, there were no resources for making memories.  Memories aren't going to do you any good if you're dead after all.  The result is that during the time I was performing some actions to survive (grabbing onto door or window sills or something - since the train was going the opposite direction as my fall, I - apparently - used that to get myself out of horizontal and back to vertical.  And judging by how my left leg slammed down on the platform, presumably I was at least a little airborne before landing on my feet again.  But while the memory of my face flying towards the train, and of myself reaching out both arms/hands towards the train, and then slamming my foot/leg down on the platform and resuming walking is very clear, there is no memory whatsoever of what happened between those two moments.

   I think resource allocation is behind the phenomenon of people remembering something "in slow motion" as well.  When seeing something well is the key to surviving, more resources are provided to sight, and you see things at a higher frame rate.  Since you're getting more visual information per second, the perception is of time going more slowly.

   Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon - www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/ - youtube.com/lylehsaxon - lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/ - lookback1997.blogspot.jp/

Saturday, November 07, 2020

Time Portal

   The time portal originally presented itself to me in a dream.  It was a place I knew - in a pair of old buildings built separately with adjoining staircases with connecting windows between them.  The windows were originally looking out on the outside world of the first building from its single stairwell, but became windows providing an air passage between the two buildings (which are now one building composed of the original two buildings joined).  The joined pair of buildings carry many mysteries - and are a unique design not replicated anywhere that I'm aware of.  The windows are left open and are large enough to pass through, although are generally just used to catch glimpses of people going up and down the neighboring stairs.

  So that's the setting.  In the dream, I discovered that one of them occasionally works as a time portal.  Initially this was a purely exciting discovery, but soon became a fearsome thing....  Where do you go?  As a view on a computer screen I'd have no hesitation at all - I'd go forward, back, here, there, it would be endlessly interesting/educational, but to actually go?  Going forward is a terrifying thing, because you have no idea of the dangers of the future that need to be avoided, so going back is the only sensible thing to do.  But back to when?  Going back is great but what if you can't return to your correct time?

  And so the testing begins.  You start by going back a few days and it's kind of weird, because you know there's another version of you back there that - in early testing at least - you don't want to encounter.  Nevertheless, like anything, as you do it, you get used to it and you widen the gap a little and go back a week, two weeks, three weeks... and you begin to encounter problems since you end up running into people you know who recently saw the three-weeks-ago version of you and notice different clothes and slightly different hair, etc.  And so your twin brother is born and that answers some short-term awkward questions, but greatly complicates your life.

  The first malfunction of the time portal is terrifying.  The other side is supposed to be CT (Correct Time) but you land in another time - further back in the past but you don't know when.  That is quite a frightening experience - kind of like how you might feel if you boarded a plane for your home country and when you got off, it was another country, but you weren't sure which country it was.  Much worse actually, since in the case of landing in the wrong country, that sort of mix-up would generally be fairly easy to remedy.  When you're aiming for one year and land in another decades off the mark though, the terrifying possibility of being lost in time presents itself and then the novelty and fun of time travel vanishes and you just want to get home.

  So you travel less, but then start to worry about the future.  Dangerous as it must be, isn't there a responsibility to look at the future, see things that have gone wrong, and return to CT and try to help steer the ship away from bad destinations?

  Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon - www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/ - youtube.com/lylehsaxon - lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/ - lookback1997.blogspot.jp/